To this proposal I gladly assented, for I was spent with fatigue and faint with hunger. Angela, however, after glancing at me compassionately and saying she would be back in a few minutes, went a little farther and presently returned with a bunch of grapes.
“Eat these,” she said, “they will refresh you.”
It was a simple act of kindness; but a simple act of kindness, gracefully performed, is often an index of character, and I felt sure that the girl had a kind heart and deserved all the praise bestowed on her by the abbé.
I was thanking her, perhaps more warmly than the occasion required, when she stopped the flow of my eloquence by reminding me that I had not yet told them why the Indian queen caused me to be fastened on the back of the nandu.
On this hint I spoke, and though the abbé suggested that I was too tired for much talking, I not only answered the question but briefly narrated the main facts of my story, reserving a fuller account for a future occasion.
Both listened with rapt attention; but of the two Angela was the more eager listener. She several times interrupted me with requests for information as to matters which even among European children are of common knowledge, for, though the abbé was a man of high learning and she an apt pupil, her experience of life was limited to Quipai; and he had been so long out of the world that he had almost forgotten it. As for news, he was worse off than Fray Ignacio. He had heard of the First Consul but nothing of the Emperor Napoleon, and when I told him of the restoration of the Bourbons he shed tears of joy.
“Thank God!” he exclaimed, fervently, “France is once more ruled by a son of St. Louis. The tricolor is replaced by the fleur-de-lis. You are our second good angel, Monsieur Fortescue; you bring us glad tidings of great joy—You smile, but I am persuaded that Providence has led you hither in so strange a way for some good purpose, and as I venture to hope, in answer to my prayers; for albeit our lives here are so calm and happy, and I have been the means of bringing a great work to a successful issue, it is not in the nature of things that men should be free from care, and my mind has lately been troubled with forebodings—”
“And you never told me, father!” said Angela, reproachfully. “What are they, these forebodings?”
“Why should you be worried with an old man’s difficulties? One has reference to my people, the other—but never mind the other. It may be that already a way has been opened.—If you feel sufficiently rested, Monsieur Nigel, I think we had better proceed. A short walk will bring us to San Cristobal, and it would be well for us to get thither before the heat of the day.”
I protested that the rest and the bunch of grapes had so much refreshed me that I felt equal to a long walk, and we moved on.